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Eisenhower Birthplace hosts a free Show and Tell on Saturday

Visitors are invited to bring family keepsakes to the Denison state historic site from 9 to 10 a.m. Sept. 19; staff will display historical artifacts and serve free coffee, according to the event listing.

Eisenhower Birthplace hosts a free Show and Tell on Saturday

📷 Michael Barera (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site in Denison has invited visitors to bring family keepsakes and objects from their own collections to a free Show and Tell on Saturday morning, according to the event listing. The hour runs from 9 to 10 a.m. Sept. 19, and the listing describes Show and Tell as a monthly program.

Staff will display historical artifacts during the hour and serve coffee at no charge, according to the same listing.

The site sits at 609 S. Lamar Ave. The Texas Historical Commission's historic-marker record places the property in Grayson County, so Cooke County readers who go will be driving across a county line for it.

A modest two-story historic house museum with a front porch, preserved as a public site
State historic sites in the region preserve modest houses like this one as public museums. Frederic Edwin Church

The house became a museum with money raised close to home. Residents put up $3,000 to buy the place where Dwight Eisenhower was born, and it opened to the public on April 20, 1946, with Eisenhower and House Speaker Sam Rayburn present, according to the Texas Historical Commission. Texas took the birthplace on as a state park in 1958, and the rooms were refurnished in 2003 with pieces from the 1890s, the commission's history of the site says.

Admission is charged on ordinary days. The commission's published admission information lists about six dollars for an adult, less for seniors, veterans and school-age children, and no charge for children 5 and younger. A family ticket covers two adults and one child, with a dollar added for each child after that.

| Regular admission | Eisenhower Birthplace | Sam Rayburn House |

| --- | --- | --- |

| Adult | $6 | $6 |

| Senior or veteran | $5 | $5 |

| Ages 6–17 | $4 | $4 |

| Age 5 and under | Free | Free |

A paid birthplace ticket also admits the holder to the Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site in Bonham for a week afterward at no additional cost, under the commission's published terms. The Bonham site lists the same regular prices, according to that same published information, and has free programming of its own the following weekend: Farming Heritage Day on Sept. 26, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with antique tractors, farm animals, community groups and fiber arts specialists taking part.

Participation across the state's historic sites has slipped. The commission counted roughly 929,000 participants in fiscal 2025, down about 2% from the year before, a decline it attributes in part to construction closures. Those totals combine onsite visits with online and outreach participation. The network itself has grown. Commission materials from July 2025 describe responsibility for 41 sites and report that Fort Martin Scott, Slaton Harvey House and Zaragoza Birthplace joined in fiscal 2024.

The site's published event listings also show a celebration of Eisenhower's 136th birthday on Oct. 10, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and an 1890s candle-making workshop on Dec. 18 at $10 for adults and $8 for students.

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